


Cosmos

by Fiachra



Series: Luke Skywalker: Ace Pilot [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: (although that's more implied really), Aroace Luke Skywalker, Aromantic Luke Skywalker, Asexual Luke Skywalker, Bisexual Han Solo, F/M, Gen, Luke has awesome friends, M/M, Minor Luke Skywalker/Han Solo, Multi, Queerplatonic Relationships, Slight sexual assault, feelings are hard, nothing too graphic promise, puns, quoiromantic, wtfromantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 14:12:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13683312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fiachra/pseuds/Fiachra
Summary: “The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together”-	Carl SaganFiguring yourself out can be tough, but being surrounded by good friends can make all the difference.





	Cosmos

**Author's Note:**

> I'd been planning on writing this aroace Luke story for a while now, so when @acesinspace set up this Tumblr fic drive I finally kicked myself into gear. This is a freestyle fic, and is not based directly on any of the prompts.
> 
> Thank you so, so much to @piratearrowxab and @physicsandfandoms who read this over for me and offered lots of excellent advice, you guys are awesome.
> 
> Content Warning: There is a scene featuring mild sexual assault, but it is short and not explicit.

  


_“My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations”_

\- John Green 

***

  


The desert is empty and barren as far as the eye can see.

Just like Luke’s heart. 

But that can’t be right, can it? He loves, doesn’t he? His friends must have been teasing him they said that, just teasing him for saying he didn’t fancy anyone.

“Is there something wrong with me?” the thirteen-year-old whispers to the burning sands.

The hot desert wind dances around him, whistles through the moisture vaporators.

The desert doesn’t have any answers, at least none he can understand.

  
  


Luke doesn’t experience what his peers do as they grow older. He tries to stay out of discussions of love and who’s bedding who when he can, and mostly he’s good at it.

“Oh come on, you have to like someone!”

“Well I don’t.”

“He’s lying, he’s got to be.”

“I’m not!”

The cackles follow him as he storms away to the speeder.

  
  


“Try to ignore them,” Biggs says at some point.

He appreciates the gesture, but Luke knows that he doesn’t understand. He tries to ignore the traitorous thought that Biggs thinks him as strange as the others.

  
  


He finds love in Aunt Beru’s hugs, Uncle Owen’s gruff yet sincere words of praise. His heart races when he performs a particularly difficult maneuverer in the T-16, it swells when he gazes at the setting suns and the stars.

That’s all love, isn’t it?

  
  


***

The unknown girl is repeating her message on repeat. Luke feels like he’s been kicked in the chest, like all the air has left his lungs. He feels a connection to her, a link. Is this what they were talking about?

He meets her in person, and again that strange feeling that something has clicked, something makes sense. Like he had found something he didn’t remember losing.

He loves Leia.

It is an odd thing to realise flying towards the Death Star, and he pushes it to the back of his mind to deal with later.

Luke turns it over in his head when he gets the chance, usually when he’s dropping off to sleep. He’s never felt this fierce feeling in his chest before, never something so intense. He doesn’t know what it is.

What Luke does know, with absolute certainty, is that he does not want to do any of the things his friends on Tatooine talked about, or his fellow pilots tease each other about with her. The very thought makes him nauseous.

Years later, it will make sense, and Luke will feel his feelings dance and settle around the word he somehow knew from the beginning but was just out of his reach.

_Sister._

He has a sister, and he loves her with all his heart.

  
  


***

The party after the Death Star’s destruction goes on for hours. Luke, taking a break from the revelry, leans against one of the pillars of Yavin IV’s old temple. A woman he doesn’t know the name of detaches from the crowd and joins him.

“Hello hotshot.” Her voice slurs slightly, and she sways as she leans towards him.

“Hello.” Luke replies, and can’t shake the niggling feeling that something is off.

“Let’s go somewhere more private, shall we?”

Luke says something about it being somewhat difficult to talk over the noise before she pulls him around the corner and into the dim corridor. Luke’s feelings bristle. Too late he realises that talking was not her intention.

His protests are cut off by her lips pressing against his. He doesn’t like this, this is wrong. He feels trapped, his back is pressed against the wall and her body is pinning them there, he can taste alcohol on her breath and just when his brain is screaming to do something, anything, there is a roar, and he can breathe again.

Chewie has her by the throat, and is saying something along the lines of ripping her arms off if he ever catches wind of this again. He all but throws her away, and Luke’s legs wobble. He slides to the floor and tries to control his breathing.

Chewie makes a concerned noise, and settles himself beside him. When he puts his arm around him, it’s all he can do not to sob.

  
  


Luke sees her again once, and as soon as she notices him and his companions she scurries away.

Han and Leia glare at her, and Chewie, who had been sticking close to him ever since, makes a chuffing noise that sounds suspiciously like “good riddance”.

  
  


***

The Rebellion is not a stranger to celebrating all they can, and any occasion can be turned into an excuse for music, dancing and laughter. The current one is a result of word getting around that Luke and Leia share a birthday.

It’s one of the few times Luke has ever seen Leia relax in front of them all, and it makes him inexplicably happy to see her twirling in the centre of the space they’ve cleared as a dance floor, hair down and swirling around her as she laughs at nothing and everything. Then her hands are in his, and she pulls him out with her.

Leia spins him around, and soon he’s laughing too. He backs into someone, Han, and then they are all dancing together, following a pattern only they know, and Luke feels his heart soar.

  
  


***

Han is different. He loves Han too, with that fierce love he’s always had for those dear to him.

But…

It’s not clear cut, or defined. If how he felt about Leia was confusing, Han is even more so. He clearly feels something for him, but what? Luke can’t tell.

But other people can tell, and said other people often waste their time trying to get Luke’s attention. He complains about it to Han one day after politely but firmly turning a fellow pilot down, whose comments about the apparent “mixed signals” Luke gives off sting more than they ought to.

“It’s so frustrating! I don’t know what’s a friendly gesture and what’s seen as more than that.”

“Kid calm down my tools are floating.”

Luke lets out a long huff and the tools clatter back into their box.

“And what do you mean you can’t tell? There’s a clear difference.”

“Not to me there isn’t.” Luke mutters before walking away, leaving Han staring after him in confusion.

  
  


“Luke! Luke! Wake up!”

Luke struggles out of a nightmare of fire and smoking sand and remembers where he is. He’s on the Falcon, in his bunk.

“Kid, it’s me.” Han’s hands are on his shoulders, and as he can see the fear fade from Luke’s eyes he gently rubs his arms. Luke slumps forward, resting his head against Han’s chest, who moves his hands to Luke’s back.

He tactfully ignores the tears on Luke’s cheeks.

Han isn’t quite sure how he ends up spending the night in Luke’s bunk, Luke pressed close against his chest and holding his hand in a death grip, but if this is what the kid needs he’s more than happy to give it.

  
  


Luke leans on Han or Leia or Chewie whenever he gets the chance. They don’t seem to mind.

  
  


Luke is leaning against Han’s side when he’s hit with an idea. One that might help him figure out the swirl of emotions in his head.

“Han?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I try something?”

Han is quiet for a moment. “Sure.”

Luke turns to face him, takes a deep breath, and kisses him.

It’s not… unpleasant. Much better than the Death Star party incident. The sense of intimacy is nice if nothing else. He pulls back a little, and when neither of them move back any further, Han kisses him again.

Luke doesn’t know how long exactly they continue like that, but he notices a subtle change when Han’s fingers tighten slightly on his waist, then loosen and slip under his shirt and up his back. Luke shivers, but not in an uncomfortable way.

Then Han moves his hands down to his hips, gently tracing the rise of his bones and resting his fingers against the top of his thighs. Luke feels as if someone has suddenly dumped a bucket of ice water over him, and he recoils, holding Han at arm’s length.

“Are you okay? Luke?”

Luke nods, then shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I thought, maybe, I don’t know.” Luke buries his face in his hands. “Why is it so complicated? I like you, but I don’t know how. I thought it might be what everyone else is always on about but now-“

Han is quiet for a few moments, then slowly closes the gap between them, and raises his arm. Luke hesitates, then leans into Han’s side, who rests his arm across his shoulders.

“It can be confusing,” Han says, “I wasn’t sure how I felt about people when I was younger, you have time.”

He is rewarded with a small smile.

  
  


They don’t talk about it again, but carry on as normal, which Luke is incredibly grateful for.

(He’s somewhat surprised by the constant bickering between Han and Leia, even with his tenuous grasp of the Force and his scant knowledge of these things, he can feel that there is something there between them, but they insist on shouting denial at each other instead. He concludes that people are just strange.)

Luke remembers snatches of the night Han came to his rescue. He remembers hands on him, and someone talking to him. He remembers trembling violently and arms encircling him, pulling him close. He remembers feeling safe, and then nothing more.

He doesn’t get to speak to Han properly afterwards, tells him to be careful instead of whatever it is he wanted to say.

(He still doesn’t know what he would have said.)

  
  


***

Perhaps surprisingly, Luke doesn’t think to look deeper into what his feelings and lack of certain ones may mean, there’s just too much to do.

But when he’s lying in the med bay after his encounter with Vader on Cloud City, alone and unable to sleep due to the screaming storm in his mind, he pulls out a data pad and does a quick Holonet search.

_Asexuality._

It has a name.

  
  


***

The name and self-realisation don’t erase all the frustration of not understanding that aspect of the lives around him of course. Luke finds it ironic that he can feel the way life sings all around him, yet that facet of it is beyond his reach. He stumbles into it sometimes, when in opening himself to the Force a couple’s feelings spill into him, an overwhelming swirl of so many different emotions that are somehow even harder to make sense of than ever.

Luke gets adept at blocking those feelings very quickly. Impressions of Leia’s emotions trickle into his mind easier than anyone else’s, and Leia can have a very graphic imagination.

(He will tease her about this later, when it all makes sense.)

  
  


***

Leia is the first who knows.

She talks about Han often (they will get him back, they _will_ ) and Luke listens, offering what little insight he can.

“This isn’t your field of expertise, is it?” Leia asks, tilting her head to the side. Luke shakes his head, and plucks up his courage.

“I think... I think I’m asexual.”

His shoulders slump, he didn’t realise how _freeing_ that admission would be.

Leia smiles, drawing him close. “Okay.”

“That’s it?” Luke says in surprise.

“What do you want me to do? Interrogate you? You’re you, and I’m happy you are.” Her nose wrinkled. “Sorry about Hoth.”

Luke laughed, chest fit to burst with the strange sort of love reserved just for her, and kissed the top of her head.

  


***

“Wedge, can I ask you something?”

Wedge swings himself down from the top of the X-wing they’re working on. “Of course, what’s up?”

“Do you think it’s weird that I’m not interested in people in a sexual way?”

“You’re asexual?” When Luke nods, Wedge starts laughing.

“You’re an ace pilot, a flying ace!”

Now both of them are cackling.

  


***

Luke doesn’t feel sexual attraction. He’s not so sure about romantic love, but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t feel that either.

He drags his father back to the Light with his love, and in that moment he knows that everyone who ever said there was one love that is above all others is wrong.

  
  


***

“So kid,” Han drawls as they lean against the bulkhead of the Falcon. Han wanted to check her over after Lando had given her back, and Luke had volunteered to help. Now they’re taking a break, and in Han’s case basking in the feeling of being back in his ship again. Love comes in many forms indeed.

“Any trysts while I was away?”

Luke snorts good-naturedly. “No, I actually realised I’m asexual. Still working on the romance side of things though.”

Han nods, as if turning the facts over in his head. “That makes sense.”

Luke grins at him, at the friend he thought he loved than accepted he did, just in his own way. “Thanks for helping me figure it out.”

Han laughed, a sound Luke is still revelling in after a year of its absence. “Anytime kid, anytime.”

  
  


***

_Leia, are you awake?_

_No._

_Ha ha, funny._

_Are all brothers this annoying? What is it?_

Luke imagines showing her the data pad, with the word he’s being looking for at the top.

_I found it, there’s a word for this too, I’m aromantic._

Leia envelops him in her presence, like a mental hug.

_I’m glad Luke, honestly._

_Thanks Leia, I love you._

_Love you too._

  
  


***

They are lying together on Han and Leia’s bed, Luke in between them, with their hands clasped on his stomach. He rarely finds himself overwhelmed by the need for touch, but Leia always knows, because she’s Leia, and Han knows when Luke finds any excuse to touch him.

Luke is happy. This is his family. If his life consists of nothing more than exploring the galaxy, teaching and delving into the Force, while knowing that they are there, he will be content. More than content.

He lets that contentment, that love, that feeling that he used to worry incessantly about, brush against Leia’s mind, and she responds in kind. Together they gather it all and push it gently in Han’s direction, who blinks, looks at them in awe, and smiles.

“Me too.”

Luke places a soft kiss on Leia’s forehead, and a slightly more hesitant one on Han’s. Han returns it, and leans over Luke to kiss Leia.

Luke doesn’t feel in what many consider a “normal” way. But he loves in his own way, and that is all that matters.

  
  


They fall asleep together, and Luke dreams about the desert. But it’s not the barren wasteland that usually comes to mind. He walks among the flowers that erupt through the sands once in a hundred years when the rains come, and sees bantha herds huddling together at night for warmth. He sits with a mother krayt sheltering from the heat of the day in a cave, coiled around her clutch of eggs. He flies with the carrion birds soaring through the cloudless sky, and hears the laughter of the people who make the desert their home. There is life all around, different, yes, but thriving. Sometimes it’s just harder to find that’s all.

Luke thinks there is a metaphor in there somewhere.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on Tumblr: @consultingzoologist
> 
> I listened to a lot of Sleeping at Last while writing this, and also Wake Me Up by Avicii *shrugs*. Would recommend them both for some thematic listening.
> 
> Also this is my 14th work on here and it's Valentine's Day. Go figure. Have a very nice day, whether it is with yourself, friends, family or a significant other.


End file.
